In a ubiquitous environment, all objects, i.e., homes, offices, buildings, telemetric and intelligent robot, are connected together through a communication network and perform computing functions. A ubiquitous service denotes a service provided in the ubiquitous environment.
In the information technology (IT) generation, a human learns a computing skill to use them. That is, the computing technology is only a simple tool that improves productivity. However, a computing technology in the ubiquitous generation learns a human to intelligently and aquatically provide related services without requiring awareness of users to computing technologies.
Therefore, the ubiquitous service must be provided with a high intelligent level of object recognition technology that properly recognizes context and provides related services according to the recognized information. Although the ubiquitous environment is provided so a user may access the computer anytime anywhere because computers are embedded in all of objects in the ubiquitous environment, the ubiquitous service becomes a harmful technology giving inconvenience to the human if the high intelligent level of object recognition technology is not provided. That is, the high intelligent services must be provided in the ubiquitous environment. Such an environment is called as a ubiquitous intelligence.
There are three essential technologies required to embody the ubiquitous intelligence.
The first essential technology is a sensing information based context aware/decision technology. The sensing information based context aware/decision technology analyzes sensed information about objects around a user, determines whether the sensed information is related to the user's intention based on the analysis result and generates event signals in response to a service request.
The second technology is an autonomic computing technology. The automatic computing technology enables computers to automatically manage themselves in order to minimize participants of user.
The third technology is a self-growing engine that enables the ubiquitous environment to be automatically evolved by self-learning and growing.
Among the essential technologies, the context aware/decision technology was spotlighted as the most important technology for the ubiquitous intelligence environment.
The ubiquitous environment, i.e., an automated home network environment, begins with obtaining of diversity information. Such an obtaining of information is achieved through a sensor network the processes diversity information inputted from various sensors.
In order to recognize intentions of users and to provide various intelligent services based on the sensor network, it requires an information system that generates results optimized to the user's intention and the environment through obtaining accurate related information. However, the information of various sensors located at different environments are often lost and modified due to multifarious peripheral factors, such as redundancy, inconsistency, information transmission and time difference. Therefore, the optimized results may not be obtained not only from single sensing information, but also from multiple sensing information obtained from different sensors because the information would be modified or collided by various environmental variables.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a sensing device of a sensor based home network system according to the related art.
Referring to FIG. 1, the sensor based home network system 10 includes a position sensing node 11 for sensing position information, an environment sensing node 12 for sensing environmental information, a security sensing node 13 for sensing information related to security, a health sensing node 14 for sensing information related parameters of health, an appliances sensing node 15 for sensing information about appliances in the home network system and an identification sensing node 16 for identifying a user. According to environment of home network system, the home network system may further include additional sensing nodes, and devices for management and supporting. Such a sensor based home network system 10 collects various information through a plurality of sensing nodes to perform diversity services.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional home network system has a sensing network structure configured of single functional node in one to one manner, which collects only information of sectored region. Since these sensing nodes 11 to 16 independently collect information and process according to own function, the resources are wasted and complexity of collecting information increases.
Therefore, the sensor based home network must be configured of sensing nodes having multiple functions such as sensing position, environmental information, security information an identifying information. In this case, the multi functional sensing nodes may generate different information for same object according to the location and the environment of information collecting node, or the sensed information are collided or interfered one another. For example, a temperature sensing node located at a shaded place and a temperature sensing node located at a sunny place may collect different information about temperature and light intensity for same time. Therefore, environmental context obtained through those temperature sensing nodes may not provide the optimized service to control lights and heating/cooling system of home.
If home context is configure by collecting information about security setting environment from multiple security sensing nodes and identification sensing nodes, the alarm system may be faulty operated according to the modification and deletion of information transmission by collecting inconstant habits of user and identified user information.
The conventional sensor based home network system 10 is not capable of properly controlling and managing collisions and interference frequently generated between information collected from sensing nodes because the sensing nodes of the home network system 10 independently collect and process information. The conventional sensor based home network system 10 generates an unintended service to a user by recognizing and deciding user's intention and environments based on incorrect information generated due to the collision and interference. Therefore, the usability the sensor based home network system 10 may be seriously influenced.
As described above, the sensing information processing technology of the conventional sensor based home network system 10 processes information based on a symmetrical interactive structure (independent) that obtains dedicated information values from independent sensing nodes having different attribute. Therefore, the conventional sensor based home network system 10 is unable to control and mange the collision and the interference generated between information in a hybrid home network environment having various sensing nodes with diversity attributes.